The Last Guardian – SIE Japan Studio – Sony Interactive Entertainment – Director Fumito Ueda – Producers Kazunobu Sato & Fumito Ueda – Designers Masanobu Tanaka, Suchol Lee, Satoru Yamabe & Fumito Ueda – Programmers Makoto Izawa – Writers Fumita Ueda, Masami Tanji & Masami Tanji – Composer Takeshi Furukawa – PlayStation 4 – PS4 - Xbox One – Microsoft Windows – Xbox One X – IndieCade – video games – eSports - Gamescom – E3 – PlayStation – LA Games Conference
The Last Guardian is an action-adventure game developed by SIE Japan Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. In the game, players control a boy who befriends a giant half-bird-half-mammal creature, Trico. The Last Guardian was released worldwide in December 2016.
Team Ico began developing The Last Guardian in 2007. It was designed and directed by Fumito Ueda, and shares stylistic, thematic, and gameplay elements with his previous games Ico (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005). He employed the "design through subtraction" approach he had used for his previous games, removing elements that did not contribute to the core theme of the connection between the boy and Trico.
Sony announced The Last Guardian at E3 2009 with a planned release in 2011 exclusively for the PlayStation 3. It suffered numerous delays; Ueda and other Team Ico members departed Sony, and hardware difficulties moved the game to the PlayStation 4 in 2012, drawing speculation that the game would not see release. Ueda and his studio genDESIGN, composed of former Team Ico members, remained as creative consultants, with Ueda as director and Sony's Japan Studio handling technical development. The Last Guardian was reintroduced at E3 2015. Upon release, it received praise for its art direction, story, and depiction of Trico.